An 85-year-old woman has been mauled to death by a 10-foot alligator as she tried to rescue her dog near a pond in Florida.
The pensioner, who has not yet been named, had been walking her dog by the pond at the Spanish Lakes Fairways community in Fort Pierce on Monday February 20, when the 700lb alligator launched itself from the water and grabbed the canine.
The woman had tried to get the dog away from the alligator’s jaws when the 700lb reptile attacked her, dragging her into the pond, an eyewitness told CBS News.
The victim’s body was later recovered by officials, while her dog is being treated for injuries, DailyMail confirms.
They later managed to drag the alligator across the grass and put it in a truck.
‘Snagged him [the alligator] on the bottom. He never surfaced. He stayed down the whole time. Got a second hook in him and then a hard line in him so we could get him up,’ Robert Lilly, an alligator trapper working for the FWC, told WPBF.
Lilly said it was ‘definitely a fight’ as the alligator weighed around 700lb.
The woman is the third victim to be killed by an alligator in Florida since last July.
